I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this book when I picked it up for many reasons. A huge one being that the only other book by Tom Perrotta I’d read was The Leftovers, which I had really high hopes for, but it left me completely unimpressed. On the other hand, I really enjoy reading family dramas and wanted to give Tom Perrotta another shot. Little Children left me with a much better impression. Although there were still things I didn’t enjoy about the book, it was a good read overall.Sidenote: WHAT'S WITH THIS GUY AND OPEN ENDINGS? Seriously. ( )

This was quite an easy quick read. Set in modern American suburbia, two bored parents begin an extra marital affair. This is very much a character study. Thought provoking rather than earth shattering. ( )

This book was suggested as discussion material for the upcoming Yale Reunion. I read it quickly; I usually do not favor novels of the current time. The first chapter had amusing comments on the background noise of child rearing and suburbia in the recent past, then the author concentrated on his characters, all of whom are sexually obsessed. The handsome stay at home dad, Todd, "the Prom King" enthralls the ladies at the playground, and starts an affair with one of them, Sarah. He almost elopes with her but is injured at the end of the novel. His wife Kathy is a film maker, and makes him regret losing her sexuality. The prison released sexual pervert is harrassed by an ex-cop, and at the end, there are resolutions, hugs, and relief. Characterization is deft, and the motives, thoughts and feelings are true to life. Often, in these novels, one thinks the main character is too stupid or blind not to notice what is happening in the plot, but that is not the case here ( )

"I have a lover! I have a lover!" she kept repeating to herself, reveling in the thought as though she were beginning a second puberty.--Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Dedication

In memory of my father, Joe Perrotta

First words

The young mothers were telling each other how tired they were.

Quotations

Not everything is God's will. If your VCR's broken, you don't take it to a priest. You take it to the VCR guy.

Last words

She was here because he said he'd run away with her, and she believed him - believed, for a few brief, intensely sweet moments, that she was something special, one of the lucky ones, a character in a love story with a happy ending.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Tom Perrotta's thirty-ish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch. There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad dubbed "The Prom King" by the moms of the playground; Sarah, a lapsed feminist with a bisexual past, who seems to have stumbled into a traditional marriage; Richard, Sarah's husband, who has found himself more and more involved with a fantasy life on the internet than with the flesh and blood in his own house; and Mary Ann, who thinks she has it all figured out, down to scheduling a weekly roll in the hay with her husband, every Tuesday at 9pm.

They all raise their kids in the kind of sleepy American suburb where nothing ever seems to happen-at least until one eventful summer, when a convicted child molester moves back to town, and two restless parents begin an affair that goes further than either of them could have imagined. Unexpectedly suspenseful, but written with all the fluency and dark humor of Perrotta's previous novels, Little Children exposes the adult dramas unfolding amidst the swingsets and slides of an ordinary American playground.

A group of young suburban parents, including a stay-at-home dad, a former feminist, and an over-structured mom, finds its sleepy existence shattered when a convicted child molester moves back into town and two of the parents have an affair.